EDMONTON - Edmontonians still hoping to protect themselves against an upsurge of influenza will get another chance Friday when two mass immunization clinics reopen.

Alberta Health Services says clinics at the Bonnie Doon Health Centre and Northgate Health Centre will each be open from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., when any Albertan over six months of age can drop in to receive a free vaccination. More clinics will be available next week. Details of times and locations can be found on the AHS website.

The health authority says traffic at the clinics has picked up substantially over the past week as cases of influenza, particularly the H1N1 strain, ramp up around the province.

AHS’s most recent statistics show 662 lab-confirmed cases of flu in Alberta as of Dec. 27; of those, 621 have been identified as H1N1.

Updated influenza numbers will be released Friday, and are expected to show a further upswing in cases.

“It’s hard to predict, but we’re into the third week of the seasonal influenza outbreak and normally the outbreaks last anywhere from four to six weeks,” said Dr. Gerry Predy, senior medical officer of health for AHS. “We’ll have a better idea once kids get back to school, as there tends to be a further spread because the kids tend to be in close quarters and pass things on to each other quite quickly.

“Particularly in this (holiday) season, with people travelling back and forth, it probably isn’t going to take very long for it to spread throughout the whole province.”

Three of the confirmed cases have shown up in a pediatric general medicine unit at the Stollery Children’s Hospital, enough for the health authority to declare an outbreak. The declaration means the unit has been closed to new patients, and non-immunized staff are asked to take anti-viral medication “to protect themselves and patients they are working with during the time of the outbreak,” Predy said.

He said outbreaks in hospital units or continuing care centres tend to happen every winter, and staff are well prepared to respond to them.

There is also nothing particularly unusual about the number of flu cases Alberta is experiencing, or the fact that most are H1N1, Predy said. However, the health authority is concerned by the proportion of serious cases, many of which have required patients to be hospitalized.

“Calgary was hit a little harder and a little earlier than Edmonton, although Edmonton is catching up pretty quickly,” Predy said. “We have three different viruses circulating, but H1N1 is by far the dominant one. Usually one strain predominates, and this year it just happens to be H1N1.”

He said the influx of serious cases led to four non-urgent cardiac surgeries being postponed this week at University Hospital, as a specialist needed for the surgeries was pulled away to care for a flu patient.

He said there have been no new deaths from the flu beyond the two that occurred before Christmas — one in Edmonton and one in Calgary.

The H1N1 strain tends to hit people in their 30s, 40s and 50s harder than seniors, who are usually more vulnerable to other types of flu.

Besides immunization clinics, vaccinations can also be obtained at some family doctors’ offices and pharmacies. Pharmacies cannot vaccinate children under nine years of age.

About 450,000 Albertans immunized at AHS flu clinics. Does not include vaccinations done at pharmacies or in doctors’ offices.

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